2024 Gamekeepers / Summer - Quail Habitat Philosophy

Using an orange softball as a quail habitat measuring stick is just one of the tips gleaned from the S.C. Bobwhite Initiative booth during the SE Wildlife Expo in Charleston. The premise is to take the softball into well-managed quail woods and drop it or toss it, and if you can still see any of the color orange, then your habitat in that spot is lacking. One can have acres and acres of grass under mature pines, and still be lacking the weedy, brushy habitat that quail also depend on. Setting back successional habitat utilizing prescribed fire, winter discing and forestry practices is the recipe for bringing back the bobwhites.

As Published in the Summer 2024 Issue

Michael Hook is the Small Game Project Coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) and is the chair of the National Bobwhite and Grassland Initiative (NBGI) Technical Committee. This committee includes 25 states today, but the committee has S.C. roots too. In March of 2009 what was then known as the Southeast Quail Study group held their first joint meeting with the Partners in Flight and the linkage between grassland songbirds and bobwhite quail was established. This humble outdoor writer and bobwhite enthusiast was present that day in ’09 to write a story for a local newspaper.

            

“Our efforts here in South Carolina are based on the NBGI’s national plan, and each state gets to choose how much of that plan they want to implement,” said Hook. “The overall goal is to create quail habitat on the landscape level. Just a few generations ago many counties consisted of postage-stamp sized farms that backed up to one another, accidentally creating premium quail habitat. Many of those folks burned woods for tick and snake control purposes, and that also embraced the bobwhite’s needs.”

To read the entire feature article click on Mossy Oak Gamekeepers Magazine.

To view past stories from Mossy Oak Gamekeepers magazine click 2024 Fence It In -  2024 Reforestation -  2024 Predator Control- 2023 Wild Turkey Decline - 2022 Managing Duck Impoundments - 2021 Regional Wood Duck Study -  Fall 2021- Summer 2021 - Winter 2020- Spring 2020 - Fall 2017- Spring 2016 - Winter 2016 - Fall 2015 - Summer 2015 - Spring 2015 - Winter 2015 - Fall 2014 - Summer 2014 - Spring 2014 - Winter 2013